Weird finding of 30 years of psychology research: pulling the facials muscles into a a smiling configuration for 30 seconds does improve mood. It’s not selection bias, it’s not the power of suggestion, it is actually is something about the “facial calisthenics” affecting the physical operation of the brain.
weird.
That said, please don’t take this as pressure from me to “smile more.” You gotta be you – I can’t imagine anyone else does “generic_name” as well as you do. So keep it up!
I can understand that, but having an unwelcome prod from a stranger to smile is not going to improve anyone’s mood. Actually, most of the time when I’m walking with a neutral expression, I’m just lost in thought and would rather not acknowledge the existence of the outside world for a bit. It’s nothing personal and I’m perfectly content, even if I might seem a little serious to others.
It’s not really harassment in the street. It happens to young women all the time - coworkers, random guy in a conversation.- sometimes, yes, a guy on the street, but generally more like someone at a store who’s interacting with you. It’s not like woof-whistling.
I never got the whole, “Smile!” thing. I used to be pretty moody as a teen and people were always telling me to smile. I hated it. They always seemed so smug about it, too, like they were being so clever.
They are the same people that expect women to smile, therefore, in a really twisted way, it really is about them. To wit:
But let’s get another thing out of the way first, itwill make my argument easier.
No, you’re not.
You just got told that you’re making it about you, admit you don’t know what the right thing to do is, tell somebody that if they’re not part of the solution then they’re part of the problem then counter by saying that this is about you trying to be a better person.
You are totally making it about you, or rather, about the perception you want people to have about you (Since I won’t challenge that you do want to be better). If you want to be a better person you’ll realize that nobody cares if you go around smiling at everybody, only that you expect any sort of response because of what you’ve done. That is totally making it about you.
Want to attempt to brighten up somebody’s day? Go ahead, give them a smile. Want to creep them out instead? Take offense at them not being grateful for you going out of your way to do something for them, ingrates.
I think that is largely a function of population density. The smaller the population, the easier it is to acknowledge the people around you, and the more rare and precious human contact can be. As population density increases, privacy and aloneness become the increasingly valuable and unattainable commodities, and ignoring people is how you deal psychologically with the fact that there are a hell of a lot of people in a small space
The problem is that women are expected to smile, because not smiling makes some men have sads.
Women are not objects. They are not here for the amusement of men.
There is nothing wrong with smiling and being polite, the problem is street harrassment which is an ongoing and common problem for women. I really don’t think it’s that hard to understand. Nor is it something that you should dismiss out of hand, because you like to smile at people on the street.
[quote=“milliefink, post:32, topic:61473”]
what’s with all these guys who insist on turning the problem about women being expected to smile into a problem for them? [/quote]
I think we’re trying to relate, by talking about the only thing we really know or care about: ourselves? So you can poke fun at that if you like, but it seems kind of short sighted to assume that a social problem, though mostly experienced by women, could not be experienced at all or related to by men?
Actually, I can kind of relate. When I was a kid, my father used to bug me about my facial expressions, which must have been kind of sad or distressed or annoyed. “Don’t make such a face”, he used to yell. And I used to think, rarely say something along the lines of “you are not the boss of my face”.
That said, most or all of the other examples in the OP look like more clear cases of harassment. The smiling thing imho still is kind of an outlier. So why don’t we get rid of harassment, then have another look at that.
Try this experiment, go up to someone you’re reasonably friendly with and tell them you want to try something out, tell them you’re going to go in for a handshake but ask them not to reciprocate, no matter what.
Go ahead, stick out your hand and lean in for a shake, look them straight in the eyes and smile. As he struggles to keep his composure, get just a little bit closer.
Better yet, have someone try this on you. If you’re anything like most people you’ll have a hard time resisting. It feels awful to be on the receiving end of this experiment, resisting all those years of conditioning.
Its the same sort of pressure a lot of people feel when somebody, even a stranger, smiles at us. No need to verbalize.
To be fair, I don’t know you personally or much less pretend to understand you. I also didn’t mean to say you specifically verbalize your request. Lots of people don’t verbalize what they’re thinking yet they are thinking something and it does come across in all sorts of manners. Hence the creepiness. How do you act when somebody doesn’t reciprocate? You may think you’re playing cool, (You personally very well may be), but I guarantee you, if you feel rebuked even in the slightest, its going to be pretty hard to not let that show.
Am I saying that if you smile at someone and you get upset that they don’t smile back then you’re being creepy? Even if you don’t say anything?
Why don’t we get rid of TELLING women to smile. Then we’ll be rid of THAT kind of harassment. And when we move on to others, maybe we can start with men generally telling women who complain about harassment that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
